Any Sound Waves, Even

I just left the library on my way here to Starbucks.

I can only take 2 books out at a time because the address associated with my library card is still the homeless shelter one which is still also on my ID. It is a mailing address, but not a residence and thus, the librarians wouldn't be able to go there and kick the door in with guns drawn, on one of their overdue book raids..

I already have the Ubuntu Linux book out, and am hesitating about putting the system on my computer, based upon the fact that I would have to back up all my data.

I've had the laptop for less than a week and already there is enough  on it to exceed the 1 gigabyte capacity of my little thumb drive. I have 3 recordings that I have made with the Audacity sound editor, a few pictures and about 26 hours of music that I spent about 3 hours downloading.

I was going to run out and buy a 4 gigabyte drive, but I'm about to spend 12 bucks on a doohickey cable to connect up the hard drive out of my old fried laptop, turning it into "external storage." I can then use some of its 45 gigabytes of free space to back up what I've managed to accumulate already. And then continue to use it as a backup device, so that I might lose no more than a week's worth of blog posts, should Google delete this blog; accidentally.

I won't be able to put Linux on the computer until the 12 dollar cable comes, but, I've got the Linux book for the next 3 weeks, with the installation disc, so there is no rush. I was without a laptop for more than a year. 

I can mess around with Perl programming (the 2nd book that I have out) on my present Windows system, and continue to download and record music and keep myself busy while waiting for the cable.

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to go through the old disc doing wholesale deletions of pieces of music that recorded back in that era. The "drunken and stoned" sessions will almost certainly come under the knife.
I used to think the "Jim Morrison" thing -bombed out of his mind; shedding his musical inhibitions; pushing the boundaries; being "genuine;"- was cool, but not any more. It sounds sloppy and obnoxious to me now, not provocative and heartfelt. It would impress me to see someone do the same thing sober, except for the exposing himself onstage part, maybe...

I've just seen to many skeezers here in New Orleans who will sit stonily with a pall cast over them staring icily at nothing in particular, until after they've skeezed a few drinks, and then... they "come to life," smiling and dancing on the sidewalk; walking right up to people, shaking their hands and introducing themselves. Will the real skeezer please stand up?

Plus, those recording I made back then were fraught with "drunken and stoned" types of glitches. The microphone wasn't plugged in that whole time?!? Really? Well, the built in mic was on...doesn't sound half as good, but it captured the performance, at least...right?

It's the stuff that I was working on (literally) when the laptop went down, when I had been alcohol free for over a month, that I hope will be a pleasant surprise to hear again. I had put about 36 straight hours into the thing and considered it about 99% complete when came the wreck of the Toshiba.

But, sometimes you have to step away from something for a long time in order to gain a fresh perspective upon returning to it. I'm either going to hear the piece and be mesmerized by it, or I'm going to stop it after a few seconds after it conjures up whatever mental anguish I was in at the time of the recording. Perhaps it would be from that nagging restraint caused by imagining my neighbor sitting on the other side of the wall with his fists and teeth clenched. That was back when I was new enough to the apartment complex to not want to cause any waves. Any sound waves, even.

 I think now, I am more patient, not expecting to finish a song, complete with all the instruments and vocals, in one session. One nice sounding guitar with a good vocal over it is plenty to accomplish in one night. It might even take a half dozen listens to it before a second vocal or a guitar line presents itself to the imagination.

It is Thursday night, and I am planning upon taking yet another night off. 

There are no parades tonight, but there is one tomorrow night. One thing that I remember about Mardi Gras is that, as busy and crazy as it can be on a parade night, it can be conversely dead on a non-parade night, as if people are resting up, or something.

It's 8 PM, and I have to figure out what to eat. Yesterday evening, I had a meal that cost me 5 dollars even. It was 2 mangoes, one can of coconut juice, 4 bananas and an orange/lemon, it tasted like, very sour. I feel better today than yesterday.

Nagging Food Issues

Which came first; the chicken or the eczema?

I have this nagging food around the apartment that I got from the food bank at St. Jude Community Center. 

Once a month we residents, by virtue of us having dwellings with stoves to cook on, are able to get a couple boxes of food that has been donated to feed the hungry, but is unfit for the likes of most homeless people. The church group could actually be liable for some skeezer who ate a tub of raw chicken livers that they might have given him, not knowing any better (of course not; that's why he is homeless) and got a stomach ache.

There were times when I was homeless that I told the white lie: "Yes, I have a stove to cook on," just so I could get the frozen fish or whatever it was that was, and then cooked it on my "stove" of cinder blocks with a refrigerator shelf grill, over a hickory, red oak, cherry and pecan wood fire.

"Yeah, what brand of stove is it?

How many burners does it have?"

But, I have a nagging box of everything that I got which contains either corn or soy. This, I was planning upon giving to Rose and Ed, before I get the munchies and eat any of it.

There is also a dozen chicken eggs in the fridge that I am planning upon giving to Arnold, a resident who, last month, traded me his two bags of dates for my dozen chicken eggs. I really need to get them out of the house, because, if I eat one, I'll eat the whole dozen; fried eggs being a lot like Lays potato chips in that regard.